Never Alone

The last few months have been a very difficult time for me. There have been moments of agony and despair and desperate pleading for any other way. However, through these difficulties, I have found peace in knowing that I am not utterly alone. Others have been through similar circumstances and understand the feelings I face.

I have taken comfort from scriptural stories where the trials faced seemed more than one could bear. I have read in the book of Job, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.” I have read the account of the Savior when he asks for the cup to be removed from him. I have read in D&C 121 where Joseph Smith asks how long God will let his people suffer. I do not hold myself on par with any of these people. I am not a prophet. I do not see myself as anything other than a lonely child trying to do my best. But with these great men, I share their pleadings and their faith.

Depression is very lonely. It can seem to be the longest path you have ever taken. It is difficult to move on, not knowing whether there is any sense of relief in the distance. I have pleaded for the end. I have begged for any other way. I have prayed for relief, for help, for things to just be a little easier. I have felt myself drowning and sensed my friends slipping farther away, the deeper I go.

But through all of this, through the pain and loneliness and heartache, I have understood what faith and hope are. Faith is not simply believing in something you cannot see. It is standing with what you believe in times when you do not know if it will be worth it. Hope is not just thinking that things will get better. Hope is believing that even though things are not getting better, there is a greater purpose in this pain you are called to endure.

My faith is not like a giant. I do not know if I always trust in a greater plan. I wonder sometimes how long this will last and how much I will have to endure. I wonder when the end will come. What I do know is that I trust in the God who made heaven and earth. I trust in a Savior that lived and died for me. I cling to the hope that because my Savior walked his long and lonely path alone, I do not have to be alone. And “though he slay me, yet will I trust in him” because I know that he has never left me and will never leave me. And if all my friends leave or cannot help because this darkness becomes too much for them to bear, I have a perfect friend that is just a prayer away.

Depression is the hardest trial I have ever faced, but because of him I do not have to do it alone. We never have to bear it alone.